da Costa Leite C, Castillo M, eds. Diffusion Weighted and Diffusion Tensor Imaging: A Clinical Guide. Thieme; 2016; 396 pp; 666 ill; $99.99

In the current era of rapidly advancing imaging techniques, particularly in neuro MR, the most effective publications are those (at least in this reviewer’s opinion) that deal thoroughly with a specific topic, as opposed to large, imposing tomes dealing with multiple diverse subjects.

Enter the newly published Diffusion Weighted and Diffusion Tensor Imaging: A Clinical Guide, edited by Drs. da Costa Leite and Castillo. This 250-page softcover book has contributions from 32 authors, and it covers DTI and those images and metrics derived from it. Fifteen chapters take the reader from the basic concepts related to DTI (Chapter 1) and its underlying physical/mathematical foundations through pitfalls and techniques used to identify artifacts, in addition to the other 14 chapters, all of which are of increasing clinical importance. These chapters include:

• Brain edema
• Supratentorial WM tracts
• DWI/DTI of various diseases and population (including Early Brain Development and the Aging Brain)
• Brain Tumors (including importantly pseudoresponse and pseudoprogression)
• Infections
• Demyelination and Toxic Diseases
• Brain Trauma
• Hemorrhage
• Spinal Cord Abnormalities
• Head and Neck Disease
• Future Applications (including diffusional kurtosis and diffusion spectrum imaging)

I found the chapters easy to read because of the conciseness of the material, the excellent high-quality imaging, the division of each chapter into logical subdivisions, and the tables of key points.

The material covers all facets of DWI/DTI and helps to clarify or re-emphasize, even for the seasoned neuroradiologist, the appearances of the underlying pathophysiology. It is difficult to highlight all the strong points of this publication in a short review, but here are a few

• The display of the normal white matter tracts on DTI (which are often confusing due to overlapping colors) is augmented by tractography of isolated white matter bands—for example, of the cingulum, the SLF, the arcuate fasiculus, and the inferior frontal occipital fasiculus, and more.
• How the white matter tracts develop (a better measure than routine MRI) and early deviations from normal like the autism spectrum disorders
• Time course from acute changes to normalization of DWI images in stroke
• The use of DWI in grading/identifying brain tumors (which restrict/which don’t)
• Appearances of a variety of infectious diseases, not just abscesses
• DWI in brain injury
• DWI’s use in spine tumor and possible ischemia

This book not only can serve as a review related to daily image interpretation, but by reading the chapters, one can appreciate immediately ripe ground for clinical research ideas. So here, in one compact and manageable book, are the vital concepts, techniques, and images that need to be recognized. Purchase of this book is highly recommended.